


the stars and the moon have finally come home

by rainbowshoppe



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Gen, Hurt No Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 13:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18411425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowshoppe/pseuds/rainbowshoppe
Summary: della makes it back to eartheveryone takes it a bit differently





	the stars and the moon have finally come home

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone, heres the 80th 'della comes home' fic, hope you enjoy!

Dewey was easily the most ecstatic. Like a million suns and every star in the sky is how he treated his mom. The answer to every single one of his questions since learning what a mom even was, right here, right now. Sure, it'd taken 10 or so years, but all that mattered was that she was here. She was  _finally_ here.  
  
The first couple of weeks of Della's return, Dewey is right next to her. He followed her everywhere he could and was happy she didn't seem bothered or annoyed by his constant presence or his unending inquiries. About who she was, mostly, but also about her time growing up with his uncle, her time adventuring with Scrooge and her long, long time on the moon. Especially how she got her amazing robot leg. She answers him and laughs with him and he soaks in each and everything she says.   
  
Dewey hangs off every word she speaks and has a question prepared for absolutely anything. He hugs her at seemingly random intervals and when she starts to do the same, he's enraptured. He cries tears of joy and jubilance more than he's cried in his whole life. He catches her doing things he's been told again and again he should grow out of and his eyes shine, both with happiness and wetness.  
  
There's little that takes his attention away from his mom. She gives him all of hers and their energies swirl into a destructive mess the likes Mrs. Beakley has scant seen. It's some of the best times Dewey has had in recent memory, even after everything with Scrooge. Sharing likes and dislikes and loves and hates back and forth and simply bonding with his mom? No McDuck adventure could ever top that.  
  
When he's resting after a long day, he realizes this the most time he's spent away from his brothers for a very long while. The thought flickers in his head for a worrisome moment before Della recaptures his mind and he rationalizes: if they wanted to be here, they'd be here. This is their loss. His dreams tell him otherwise, but he's never been one to listen to those.

 

* * *

  
  
Huey is everything his brother isn't. Everything he sees in his mother is scalding. He hugs her the first time he sees her and he cries into her shirt with his siblings but his warm emotions leave him overnight and his cold logic kick back in. He watches Dewey, Louie and Uncle Donald enjoy her return in different amounts, but all more than him.  
  
There's something bitter that finds its way into Huey's heart. He lets himself humour his mother for an entire day and then swiftly retreats to the houseboat the moment he can't bite out anymore pleasantries. The Junior Woodchuck Guidebook is for once, useless in what to do. Though, Huey suspects even people with the weirdest family tales don't experience their parents abandoning them for the stars before they've even hatched. It's not exactly something someone  _should_ have to prepare for.  
  
And that's just it, isn't it? Huey shouldn't be  _expected_ to deal with this. None of them should! Yet here they are, an uncle who's more of a dad than whoever else brought them to this world, a mom with a prosthetic leg she made herself (which is admittedly pretty cool) who's just returned from the  _moon_  of all places, and all eyes on the three children she left behind. They're just supposed to, what, all of a suddenly love her? For all of the nothing she's done for them? Simply because she holds title of their mother? It's unfathomable.  
  
The manor becomes a place uninhabitable for the eldest triplet in the span of a single day. He tells no one this sudden change, because really, he can't think of anyone to tell. It's suffocating and he can't stand seeing his younger brother trip over himself to try and get 10 years worth of motherly love from a woman they, for all intents and purposes, barely even know.   
  
So instead, Huey spends the first couple of weeks after his mother's touchdown hidden in his uncle's houseboat. Nobody looks for him there, save for the man himself. He's relieved when he's allowed to stay in their old bedroom and further grateful when Uncle Donald doesn't ask him why he's suddenly so keen on staying in a beat up boat rather than a literal mansion. He gets a kiss on his head every night, and he's content with it. He doesn't think about missing his brothers.

 

* * *

  
  
Louie is, as always, the most indifferent to the situation. Yes he clung to their mom like she was the only source of heat in an ice cap and yes he cried into her shoulder longer than his brothers, but nobody can blame him for that. The first time seeing your mom after internalizing the fact that she's dead and gone? You can hardly blame anyone for something like that.  
  
But after the massive tidal wave of emotions comes and finishes destroying every hold he had on his cool and calm personality, he picks up the pieces. Is it  _cool_ his mom is back? Yeah. It's pretty amazing actually, even if she's one leg short of how he imagined her. Is it also completely altering everything in his family dynamic that was  _just_  put back together? Undoubtedly.  
  
Contrary to what people may think, Louie wasn't dumb. It was very easy for him to see patterns in things that didn't have them and notice small changes where others wouldn't. One pattern was this: whatever Huey loved, Dewey was bound to find distaste in, and vice versa. Another was this: even with his brothers vying for validation for what they liked, Louie would always stay carefully neutral (unless some sort of bribe was given) and choose something they both either fairly liked or decently disliked.  
  
Small changes involved Uncle Donald coming home with either more pep in his step than usual, or with his entire body holding the weight of the world, indicative on if he still had a job or not. When Uncle Scrooge would come to breakfast and have his top hat donned, they were going to be proposed an adventure. When Huey had his fists balled up or if he let them hang freely with little flapping motions. When Dewey's entire atmosphere radiated either idiotic gumption or overwhelming regret. Louie was well versed in what he was able to do.  
  
So when Dewey suddenly had no emotion except excitement and Huey became missing in action and Uncle Donald seemed to come inside more (a win) but walk like he'd just been fired from all three jobs (a huge loss), it wasn't hard to put together the tethering force between it.  
  
Louie does what he did normally though, he ignores it. He spends a couple weeks marathoning and remarathoning Ottoman Empire and lets the chips fall as they will. He doesn't actively try to interrupt Dewey's hero worship but lets himself be included whenever they happen into the TV room. He doesn't actively try and find Huey, who's done his best to disappear and is normally good at keeping himself that way when he tries. He doesn't try to get any closer to his mom (not that that one's by choice, Dewey won't let anyone else share more than a moment with her before he wants all her attention again) unless she puts forth the effort herself.  
  
It's a lonely couple of weeks. Louie gets the room all to himself though, which is kinda cool. There's no one to kick at the top most bunk and no one to hum the same tune they do every night and no one to lull the youngest to sleep. It takes two nights for him to decide maybe it's not very cool.

 

* * *

  
  
Donald feels every emotion he's ever felt and then some. He's got tears in his eyes when he first lays eyes on her again, he's so happy. Then poison seeps through his veins and all he has to show for it is white anger. He shouts at her, livid fury, still unable to understand why she'd left everything for space. As quick as the rage comes it leaves and he's back to tears. Big, ugly ones that get lost in the back of her shirt. It's been so long since he'd last given his sister a hug. It feels like home and so foreign at the same time it tugs at extreme different directions in his heart.  
  
When the boys meet her there's something he's promised himself he'd never let himself feel blooming in his chest, pure jealousy. It stings as he swallows it back and does everything to rationalize that this is in fact, their mom and they're only 10 and they're probably dealing with a lot just  _seeing_  her right now. He shouldn't feel jealous over kids seeing their mom for the first time, but he does. He leaves them to their reunion and slinks off to his houseboat.  
  
He does his best to spend time with his sister while also leaving her space to be with her kids. It's not an easy feat, it turns out. Donald finds himself in the mansion more than before but every step he takes is laced with guilt. Guilt over not being able to stop her hotheadedness before she flew away. Over not being able to keep the triplets' mother within their stratosphere. Over not being anything she could've been for them, if Dewey's any measure. He comes by often, but not for long. It only sort of feels like a good compensation.  
  
It's only mildly surprising when he finds Huey stowed away not even a day after Della's return. He looks beside himself with all the nervous energy of someone who's made a rut with how much pacing they've done. Donald doesn't ask, doesn't need to. He simply tells him that his old bedroom hasn't changed and ruffles his head feathers with a small smile. Huey gives him a wide grin and a tight hug. If there are some stains on his shirt when the boy pulls back, Donald doesn't mention it.  
  
For someone who seems to stay thoroughly planted in one place, Louie makes himself sparse. Every so often Louie will spot him before Donald can find him first and wave him over and they'll watch something in a comfortable silence. Once, after not seeing him for a couple days, Donald passes by the triplets room and hears the undeniable sound of the youngest sobbing. He's immediately ready to push in and comfort the child, but falters. He can't tell if he's really allowed to anymore. By the time he decides to anyways, the sounds have died down and Donald pads away with the feeling of failure following him.  
  
Dewey is the easiest to locate and the hardest to see. Dewey and Della are an inseparable pair, which is something Donald always knew would happen. He tries his best not to see the boy's admiration as anything than it is, but it's not simple. Dewey doesn't want to do anything that doesn't have to do with Della, and while Della looks at her child with love he also sees she's tired. Donald tries his best to gently suggest Dewey hang out with his uncle instead, but the kid is adamant at spending as much time as he can with his mom. Donald concedes, gives his sister a small  _I tried_ , smile, and tells them he'll see them later.  
  
For a couple weeks after Della comes back, Donald is fraught with a particular loneliness. He's got all ~~his~~ her kids here, he's got  _her_ here, but for a reason that's escaping him, it just feels like he's the one who's stuck on the moon now. All in all, he kinda wishes he were.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! i love you!!  
> i love comments but please no criticism, positive or otherwise! ;w;  
> i love della so so so soooo much i cannot wait to see how much shes gonna destroy the family dynamic >:P


End file.
